


Early Installment Weirdness

by TheRowdyZone



Series: starstruck [1]
Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast), The Adventure Zone: Amnesty (Podcast)
Genre: Actors, Alternate Universe - Actors, F/F, Meta, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-05
Updated: 2019-05-05
Packaged: 2020-02-26 11:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18715858
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheRowdyZone/pseuds/TheRowdyZone
Summary: Aubrey becomes one of the three leads on the hit TV series Amnesty. It's a dream job for her, but mostly she's trying to remember her lines in the face of a really, really cute girl.





	Early Installment Weirdness

Aubrey sticks out a hand to the new guy with a boldness she doesn’t really feel. “I’m Aubrey,” she says.

He takes it, and at least he looks as nervous as she feels. “Duck,” he says.

She relaxes a little. “You’re playing Ranger, right?”

“That’s right,” he says. “You’re, uh, Fire Girl?”

“The Lady Flame,” she says. She can’t help but puff herself up. She’s been a magician for years and of course she loves it, but what theater kid hasn’t dreamed of being an actress one day? And playing a  _really cool character_.

“Right,” Duck replies. He looks amused, but not in a mean way. “Didja happen to hear if they got someone for this Aloysius guy?”

“Oh, it’s--”

And then the man himself comes striding onto set with Barclay, and makes a beeline for them. “Ah, my fellow stars!” Ned Chicane’s voice is unmistakable to anyone who’d ever fallen asleep on a weekend and woken up at 2am to basic cable programming. “You must be Aubrey Little - and of course Duck Newton.”

Duck winces for some reason, and Aubrey shakes Ned’s hand with a grin. Ned is one of those people who had took the  _all the world’s a stage_  sort of approach to a stage presence.

“Nice to meet you, Mr. Chicane,” says Aubrey.

Now it's Ned’s turn to wince, and Duck barks a laugh. “Just Ned will do, I think…”

“All right, people, we’ve got a lot of work to do and not a lot of time to do it,” says Mama. “Let’s start with the scene where you all meet in the woods beyond the castle--”

* * *

 

The pilot gets picked up.

They all gather into a conference room at the hotel to watch the finished episodes - a two-part pilot, airing back to back. Aubrey holds Dr. Harris Bonkers PhD close to her chest as the show opens - on an establishing shot of a pine forest, quiet, just a little eerie. And then it cuts to the Lady Flame, doing magic tricks for children outside a tavern. And Ranger, helping a woman being chased by a monster. And Aloysius, getting busted for selling admission to a tent filled with  _many a myriad wonder from far-flung lands_ , all of which was junk except for a magical necklace.

And it jumps between the three of them, giving them equal screen-time, until their very different stories converge with the Lady Flame running into Aloysius in the woods, and Ranger being chased into their midst by the monster.

It plays out even better cut together properly, and Aubrey feels oddly like she's watching a stranger and not herself playing a character. She reaches out and grabbed Ned and Duck’s hands when their characters - buffered by CGI that made it look  _really cool_  - fall in together to fight the monster.

The first half of the pilot ends with a sudden downpour, and the monster being doused, and turning to them with malice in its eyes.

“Huh,” says Duck. “Much spookier than the tennis ball on a stick they had us lookin’ at.”

“The concept art was cooler,” Aubrey says loyally.

Dani looks over her shoulder at Aubrey and smiles.

“My friends, we looked like total badasses,” says Ned. “There’s simply no way this masterpiece doesn’t get picked up for at  _least_  six seasons.”

“You’re going to jinx us,” Mama says.

“Yeah, Ned, what kind of actor are you? We’re supposed to be superstitious.”

Ned waves Aubrey off. “I never bought into all that crap.”

“Sh, the next bit’s where it gets good,” says Duck, leaning forward.

* * *

 

“I was wonderin’, actually,” Duck says carefully.

Madeline Cobb - Mama, as she preferred to be called, apparently – eyes him with an amount of caution he would characterize as probably fair, if not necessarily deserved. He can't imagine working in show biz was the sort of thing that led to being especially trusting of new actors. “Yes?”

“I, uh, I only auditioned because my best friend, Juno, we’ve known each other since we were practically in diapers, dunno what I says diapers for, sorry. She bet me, y’see. And I saw you needed someone to play Ranger’s sister.”

“Well, if she got you t’ try out for the part, then I guess I owe her,” says Mama. “You understand it won’t be a major role, yeah?”

“Nah, Juno’s - she’s what you’d call gainfully employed. She teaches conservation at the college. Wouldn’t want the gig if it were a big commitment, I just think she’d get a kick outta the whole thing.”

“Give me her number, we’ll have her in to do a reading. And that ain’t a guarantee - but i he’s decent, I think we can work it out.”

“‘Preciate it.”

“Can your friend ride a horse, Duck?”

“She’s done some trail stuff, I know, and she ain’t bad at mechanical bulls, if that helps.”

“Maybe a little more than I needed to know, but that’s a relief.”

* * *

 

Onscreen, Juno Devine arrives in something of a blaze of glory, scaring the monster off with the sound of hoofbeats and brandishing an enormous crossbow. Aubrey was super psyched when they brought the horse, Knickers, on set. It turns out horses ate basically the same things as rabbits, so she’d just gotten him some of Dr. Harris Bonker’s hay.

 _“Ranger!” Juniper says, lowering the crossbow. “Thank the gods - Victoria’s girl came running into town saying you’d gone after a_ monster _.”_

_“No monsters here,” says Ranger._

_Lady Flame gaped at him. Ranger scuffed out a clear and monstrous footprint in the dirt with the heel of his boot._

Aubrey puts her head in her hands. “I can’t watch this,” she says, as Ranger lied about a bear. “I hate plotlines like this, they make me so anxious. Just  _say_  something!”

“But the dramatic tension,” says Ned.

“He doesn’t wanna worry his sister,” Duck says.

Their characters have a similar argument on the way back to town: the Lady Flame thought the town deserved to know, Ranger thought inciting a panic would just create more danger, and Aloysius stays awfully quiet until -

_“Say, Ranger,” Aloysius says. “You seem to be in possession of quite an unusual sword, I see.”_

_“Yeeeees,” the sword replies. “I am the light that stands at the edge of the darkness, I am the tower above the fog, and I am the most beautiful, terrible weapon ever crafted.”_

_“What in the seven hells,” says Lady Flame._

_“Aw, shut up, Beacon,” says Ranger._

_“Very unusual indeed,” says Aloysius. Then, “Is it for sale?”_

_And as Beacon sputters, Ranger says, “It was a gift, actually, can’t really… go selling him off. Much as I might want to.”_

_“Perhaps if I were sold I could find myself in the hands of a more_ worthy _adventurer to wield me,” Beacon retorts._

Aubrey giggles. “You did really good with the voice, Duck.”

“Don’t remind me,” sighs Duck.

* * *

 

Barclay and Mama are in something of a tizzy as they're wrapping filming.

“The guy we got to voice the magical sword backed out,” explains Barclay, while Mama has a very terse phone conversation with someone. “We’re trying to find someone decent in a pinch and get them signed on. We don’t want to have to change voices for the sword midway through the show if it gets picked up.”

And something occurs to Ned.

Ned has been in the business for quite some time, and he has a  _very_  good memory. Never forget a name or a face, and you never forget a possible contact. This was a business where it was all about who you knew, after all. And he knew one of his co-stars was a fair hand at voice acting himself.

“Duck,” he says slowly, “what about that thing you did for Saturday Night Dead?”

“Aw, dammit, Ned,” says Duck. “Ned, I asked you for  _one_  thing, one thing, not to bring that all up again--”

“Whoa, whoa, what’s this?” Aubrey asks, leaning forward. She's a bright young thing - with a good nose for gossip, more importantly. It was gonna take her places. She grins a little as she looked between Duck (pinching his nose, a little dramatic, Ned thought) and Ned. “Duck, did you do voice acting?”

“It was a few years back,” Ned says.

Mama and Barclay both are looking interested now. Ned draws himself up – he's providing real solutions to urgent problems, now - and says, “Did anyone see that segment with the skull that spoke in a  _remarkable_  Tim Curry impression?”

“No way,” Aubrey says. “Duck! You didn’t tell me you were a  _meme_!”

“Shuddup,” says Duck.

“It would be an actual, literal lifesaver if you could do Beacon’s voice,” Barclay says seriously.

And Mama looks at Duck very intently, too.

Duck folds like wet cardboard. “Oh, all  _right_ ,” he says.

LADY FLAME  
Who are you?

The mysterious figure pushes back her hood. It’s Lora (mid-20’s), and she looks somewhat frightened.

LORA  
I’m sorry for the secrecy. But it’s not exactly safe for me out there.

LADY FLAME  
Why not?

Lora removes a ring and she begins to glow, and her teeth grow long and sharp, and her eyes turn bright orange.

LORA  
Because I’m one of the monsters.

_Theme music plays._

* * *

 

“Soooo,” Aubrey says.

Mama looks up. “Hm?” She says.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to bother you,” Aubrey immediately says.

But Mama shakes her head and puts the tablet to sleep mode. “Not at all. I’m on set to work  _with_  y’all, remember?”

“Yeah,” says Aubrey. “Uh, listen, this Lora character.”

“Uh-huh?” Mama’s expression is inscrutable.

“Is she a love interest kinda figure for Lady Flame?”

Whatever Mama expected, it clearly isn’t that. She blinks a couple of times and then says, “Did you… want her to be?”

“I mean - just - she shows up, she grabs Lady Flame’s hand and pulls her into a dark alley, that feels, you know, kinda--and then they’re out gathering herbs together! And they have that whole talk about how Lora can’t see her brother and father anymore… It just felt like it was building to something, is all.”

“There’s nothing in the show that makes that the case,” says Mama. “So far, anyway.”

“What do you mean, so far?”

“I mean, there’s a rough outline, and of course episodes are in the work, but the writers - you know how it is. Writers work in mysterious ways.”

“If you say so?” Aubrey’s voice lilts up into a question.

Mama cocks her head. “Tell you want,” she says. “How about you talk it over with Dani. Because if you wanna play it as a romance…” She pauses. Her eyes narrow.

Aw, shit. Busted.

“Unless you  _have_  been playing it as a romance.”

* * *

 

Truth is, Aubrey just sorta skimmed the blocking for the scene and started learning her lines. She didn't give it much thought.

But then they introduce her to the actress playing Lora - a tall and very pretty blonde woman named Dani, who smiles a little at Aubrey and shakes her hand - and Aubrey’s heart starts to beat a little faster.

Shit, shit, shit.

Aubrey is a  _professional_ , she can't afford to get tongue-tied by an attractive coworker this early in the game. She's reminded of her days doing convention circuits when one of the guys at a hotel had been so  _stupidly handsome_  that she dropped a deck of cards on a baby’s head.

That could. not. happen. here.

So she stows it away.

And then they run the scene, and she tries to act normal as she walked in a carefully spaced crowd of extras, and then a hand slips into hers and Dani says, “Lady Flame. Come with me. We need to speak… alone.”

It isn’t until she steps into the alcove with Dani that she realizes how much trouble she was in. Because Dani pushes the hood back and delivers her line and Aubrey  _blanks_ for entirely too long.

Dani grins, and the flip her stomach does is decidedly not fair. “It’s ‘why not’,” she says. “We’ll try it again.”

They reset the scene, and Aubrey tries to make the frown of concentration look like she's freaked out by a stranger grabbing her in the street, and not scrambling to remember her lines in the face of  _oh shit she’s really cute_.

Luckily Barclay is pretty used to the main three ruining takes with absolute nonsense, so he doesn’t even seem annoyed that they wind up giggling a few times - Dani accidentally messes up her hair with her hood in one take, and Aubrey thinks of a dumb Single Ladies joke when Dani removes the ring in another.

And when Barclay decides they have enough to work with for the dailies, Aubrey manages to stumble her way through suggesting Dani stick around set to talk more later, and Dani agrees readily.

* * *

 

Reading back over the script, and thinking about the blocking of the scene, Aubrey wonders if maybe there was a  _reason_  they’d cast a hot girl in the role of a mysterious vampire.

Regardless of what the writers’ intentions were, when they edit the episode together, it was… really something.

 _Lady Flame was tense, frowning, as the hooded stranger pulled her into the alcove and finally dropped her hand. “Who_ are _you?” She asked sharply._

_Lora pushed her hood back. Her eyes were wide, and her mouth twisted down unhappily. “I’m sorry for the secrecy. But it’s not exactly safe for me out **there**.”_

_And Lady Flame’s hard expression faltered. “Why not?” She asked. There was a thread of concern in her voice._

_Lora looked over her shoulder and took a deep breath. She worked the gleaming silver ring off her finger. When she lifted her head, her skin glowed, and her eyes were bright with orange light. And her teeth were sharp around the words, “Because I’m one of the monsters.”_

_Lady Flame’s lips parted in shock, but she didn’t step back._

“Huh,” says Duck.

“Don’t say it,” Aubrey tells him.

Duck glances at her sidelong. “All right,” he says, “but I’ll bet Twitter’s having itself a field day.”

They’d started keeping up with the live Twitter feed for the episodes. It's nice to be able to face Twitter head on with Duck and Ned, because then when someone says something mean they could mock it, instead of Aubrey wanting to send angry replies, or staying up half the night thinking about the people who says how boring the show was.

Ned is already scrolling. “There  _is_ something interesting in the hashtag.”

She grabs the phone from him. There's a picture of someone’s TV paused right with Lady Flame and Lora standing mere inches apart, captioned  _give me a heterosexual explanation for this. u can’t_.

Aubrey grins despite herself.

But there wasn’t much else.

“Huh,” says Duck, looking over her shoulder. “People were tweetin’ right at me and Vince after our scene together.”

“Wait, doesn’t Vince play--”

“The Goatman? Yeah,” he says.

“Huh,” says Aubrey. “Well, is Ranger into that? Have you checked?”

“You’re right, let me call the writers and ask them if Ranger’s thing is goatmen.”

“It might help to really get into Ranger’s mindset,” says Ned.

“You gotta figure someone saw the episode and realized they had just, the absolute  _worst_  fetish,” Duck says.

And Aubrey, giggling helplessly, didn’t think much more about Twitter.

* * *

 

LORA  
You’re taking this well.

LADY FLAME  
I mean, you haven’t tried to kill me yet, and it’d be pretty weird of you to tell me this if you meant to hurt me.

LORA  
I promise you, Lady Flame, I don’t want to hurt anyone, especially you.

LADY FLAME  
Why especially me?

LORA  
You have magic. You can be the bridge between humans and monsters, so that we can live in peace.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Follow us at therowdyzone.tumblr.com
> 
> -Hellbender


End file.
